What Happened to the Weekend!!!???

Last Saturday morning I had to be at the Nissan dealership to get a few things done to my car. I had to get a software update, an oil change and my tires rotated. My car is still under warranty so I make the one hour drive to the dealership when I need it done. Plus I had the software update so I had to go to the dealership. The last time I was at the dealership they told me it would take about two hours for the update and oil change. So I had to schedule accordingly.

I am probably the only person who doesn’t mind sitting in a waiting room at the car dealership waiting for my car to be serviced. I take something to read, some knitting and coffee and I am in heaven.

When I arrived on Saturday at 8:00 AM the tech told me that it would be an hour and a half, two hours max. I said ” don’t you worry about me I am good” I settled into the waiting room with my coffee and knitting and ear buds for my phone. This is one of the few places where I have uninterrupted time to knit and read or whatever. I so enjoyed it!!! It only took about an hour and a half and they were finished.

I decided to make at least one stop while I was in Knoxville so I chose Target. It has been about six or seven months since I have been to Target. It was still pretty early only about 9:30 so there were not a lot of people there. I found some really neat things:

This is one of my favorite spots at Target. There are some super cute things here and really cheap. Just some little things that you wouldn’t find in a lot of places. I found these little cloth pumpkins here and they were only $1.00. I bought seven of them although I now wish I had bought more because I needed a few more to fill my bowl and I don’t know when I will be back. I didn’t have any luck finding them online.

I love these colors and the way everything is put together but I found most of the items a little pricey for Target. Like this large wooden tray below. I love trays and I have a lot of them. I have to bring them out a few at a time and keep the others stored or I would have them all over my house. This was was about $40.00!! Ouch!!

I am sort of on the fence about these shirts with the really large puffy sleeves. I am a bit top heavy and I think these sleeves would make me look even more so. I wasn’t able to try it on because Target still has their dressing rooms closed. I will have to think about this ***one. I love the look on other people but not sure for me.***

***I absolutely loved this little purse but little was the key word. It just would not accommodate everything I carry day to day. I do love the color and design though.***

I did grab this little brow pencil and brush by elf. Elf has gotten a bad rap on some of their products because they have been known to scrimp on some of their sizes and content. But people come on this was $2.00. I mainly bought it for the brush but after I got it home I noticed that the pencil has quite a lot in it as well. I love it!!!

And last but certainly not least I just had to stop by Starbucks and try this iced coffee I heard about. You may have tried this combination but if not you need to. This was a Venti iced white mocha with sweet cream cold foam and extra caramel drizzle. A splurge but definitely worth it.

The rest of the weekend went by pretty quick as weekends and days off normally do. I did some baking and some knitting and I made Madeleines. Have you ever made Madeleines ? I have been wanting to make some for quite a while. You have to have a special pan. I will have a full post on those in a couple of days. They dry out pretty quick so I took the entire batch to work and everyone loved them and ate them all up.

Watch for the blog post about making Madelines you just have to try them.

Have a great rest of the week and always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Making Fried Apple Pies

Happy Monday friends,

The weather here has been HOT!!! Temps have been in the upper 90’s with a heat index making it feel like it’s over 100 degrees!!!!

Oh what a perfect time for our air to go out. Yep, I came home from buying groceries on Saturday and heard Mark talking to someone on the phone. Turns out it was the man who services our heat and air unit. To tell you this man, Wayne, is wonderful would be such a gross understatement. And not just because he came out on a Saturday afternoon and serviced our unit but he has been there so many times for us, and for many of my family members. First of all the unit was put in over 20 years ago when we built the house. You know that most units these days don’t last that long.

Wayne is not the type of repairman that will tell you that you need a new unit just so he can make some money. He is fair and honest. Anyway he had the air back on within two hours and I barely broke a sweat.

What does this have to do with making fried apple pies you may ask. Not really anything except if we hadn’t gotten the air back on I would not have been heating the stove for anything!!!

In all my days of cooking I have never made fried apple pies. WHAT??? I always wanted to try them. I don’t know if you follow Brenda Gantt on Facebook but she is a true southern cook from Alabama. Check her out. I just love her.

So I went by Brenda’s recipe for the dough. All she uses is plain flour, buttermilk and solid crisco shortening, you know the white stuff in the tin can. My mama always had some when we were growing up.

Brenda doesn’t use much of a recipe so I watched her video on Facebook and went by that. Here is what I did:

I used 3 Granny Smith apples. I peeled them and added about 3/4 of a cup of sugar, a half cup of water and sprinkled some cinnamon on top of the apples and cooked them down until they became soft and mushy and syrupy. I used a heavy sauce pan.

I put some plain flower in a mixing bowl and added 1/2 cup of the solid shortening and some buttermilk. I didn’t measure the buttermilk I just kept adding the buttermilk until I could form a small ball of dough. I then divided the dough into several pieces and sprinkled them with flower. I rolled them out, using a dough roller, in small circles about 4 inches in diameter. The dough cannot be sticky. Add a little flour to keep it from sticking.

The cooking time in the oil will vary depending on what kind of pan you use. The cast iron pan took 2-3 minutes on each side. They cook really fast.

They turned out really well. Mark had his with ice cream. I took what was left over to work and my fellow employees made short work of those.

**I love using this Cast Iron Cookware by Lodge. It is perfect for frying.**

***Granny Smith apples are the best for these pies.***

***The apples tasted yummy I could have eaten them just like this. Actually I did.***

I hope you have good luck with your fried apple pies.

Always remember love your day your way!!!

How To Make Yummy Baby Back Ribs

Hello friends and happy Monday, How are you how was your week? I know I have been a little inactive but my job right now is taking center stage in my life. More about that later.

Yesterday I was off and I did some cooking. I made pecan pancakes for breakfast and then I decided to make baby back ribs in the crock pot. I have made them in the crock pot several times. I love them this way. I bought a rack of baby back ribs at the grocery store.

This is the best way to make baby back ribs in my opinion. First of all I make a rub to put on the ribs. I use, 8 Tablespoons of Brown Sugar, 3 Tablespoons of kosher Salt, 1 tablespoon of Chili powder, 1 teaspoon of black pepper and 1 teaspoon of onion powder and 1 teaspoon of garlic powder. This is the amount of rub you use for a double rack of ribs. If you are only cooking a rack of ribs you will only use half of this. Put the other half back for next time or just use double on these and it will still be yummy.

This is a picture of the rub.

First of all I got a rack of baby back ribs. They are a little pricey but sometimes you can get them on sale. Splurge. It’s worth it!!

This is a rack of baby back ribs and it is plenty for me and Mark.

Next I make the rub. See the recipe from above.

I always cut the ribs in two so that I can place them in the crock pot easier.

Next you need to pull the membrane off of the ribs. It is not pleasant but you need to do it. I know that you don’t have to pull the membrane off but it does make them taste so much better. The rub really gets into the meat if you remove the membrane. There are several videos out there helping you to learn to do this. Google it.

Turn the ribs over so the rib part is showing. Take a butter knife and slip under the membrane make a pocket and slip your hand or the knife under the membrane and pull it off of the ribs. Some of the membrane comes off easily, if you are lucky, and some of them don’t. Yesterday I almost had a melt down because I couldn’t get the Fu/c8ing membrane off!!!!! I finally got most of it off.

The trick to cooking these ribs in the crock pot is that you must put them up on their sides so that they are not lying in their own juices because this tends to make them mushy. Don’t add anything to them at this point. Just let the meat cook and use it’s own juices.

Cook the ribs for about 6 hours in a crock pot on low. Check them after 6 hours and see if they are getting done. I think 6 hours is usually plenty of time. My recipe called for 8 hours but that is usually too long. I always check them after 6 hours.

After you take the ribs out of the crock pot place them on a pan and brush them with barbecue sauce and put them under the broiler in the oven for just a couple of minutes and they will taste yummy!!!!

So the ribs turned out pretty well. They were tasty. I have made better but these were good too.

Try them!!!

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Southern Apple Stack Cake

This is one of my “Southern Secrets” It is a secret way I have of making a really yummy treat.

When I was first married, I remember my mother in law knew a woman in town who made the best Apple Stack Cakes you have ever eaten. An apple stack cake is just what the name says. It is a stack of cakes with apple filling in between. The higher the stack the better, but most recipes call for six layers of the cake. Now keep in mind the layers are very thin, that is one of the tricks to the Apple Stack Cake. I am going to tell you the basic four steps for preparing the Apple Stack Cake and then I am going to give you a secret recipe that is unbelievably good. You may already know about it. It doesn’t even involve baking. What?? You won’t believe it!!! Please know I am not trying to downplay the Apple Stack cake and the original way to make it. It is a true labor of love and shouldn’t be taken lightly. If I could buy one or make one every week I probably would. But I know I don’t have time for that and you probably don’t either.

But back to my original story. When I was first married my mother in law knew a woman and her husband who made stack cakes at Christmas. They had several apple trees and they would harvest the apples in the fall and peel them and dry them for Christmas time to be made into the cakes. They dried bags and bags of them. This was a big deal for them. They did it to earn extra money for Christmas. They were both retired and lived very modestly. When Christmas came around everyone knew this was the place to get your stack cake. Many many cakes were made daily. They even delivered them to you for the outrageously low price of $12.00. I know!!! I think the first year I knew about them they were $10.00 and then the price of the ingredients went up or maybe the apple crop didn’t do as well and they had to increase their price. If you ever happened to stop by their house during the stack cake preparation, you would see a flurry of activity coming from that sweet couple. You would find it hard to believe that only two people did all of the work that went into all of the cakes.

My mother in law always got one for Christmas dinner. You had to put your order in early because they only made so many and when the apples were gone they were gone. After I got married I got on the list so that I could have a cake for my mom and dad’s house when we went there for Christmas. Two of these awesome cakes at Christmas, well it was just about the best thing you can think of.

The four basic steps for making your Apple Stack Cake: I am not including an ingredient recipe you can google it or you may even have one from your grandmother or aunt Gene.
Here is one that I found that looks pretty good http://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/8012/apple-stack-cake

1. You make the apple filling. You are making the applesauce from dried apples by simmering them with water and spices and a bit of brown sugar. Once the dried apples become soft and pliable you will put them into a food processor to be pureed.

2. Make your cake batter. You can use a basic cake batter but you must chill it so that you can spread the cake batter very thinly for baking. Some people put the batter directly on parchment paper and bake the layers (you must have at least six layers, I don’t know why but you do) but my mama always used a cake pan and just spread the batter really thin along the bottom of the cake pan.

3. When the layers of cake are cooled you put one of the layers on a plate. Spread the filling on top then add another layer continue with this until you get to the last layer. Some people spread the filling on the top and sides. I think this makes it really messy. It also makes it hard to wrap it later. Once you wrap the cake the delicious apple filling will seep into all of the cake and make it really soft and yummy.

4. Top the cake with waxed paper and wrap in plastic wrap. Let stand at least 12-24 hours before cutting.

Doesn’t that look delicious?

Now I will tell you my little cheater way of doing this. A friend told me about this years ago and whenever I get a craving for an Apple Stack Cake I just fix one of these:

You will need a jar of reaaaallllly good apple butter. This is the apple butter I bought at the Mennonite market a few weeks ago. It is so good. You will also need a pack of graham crackers. I use the regular kind. I guess you could use the cinnamon ones.

Spread the apple butter between each of the graham crackers and start layering the crackers.

This is what it will look like when you finish. I may have gone a little crazy on the apple butter but it is just so good!!!!

You then wrap plastic wrap around it and put it in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours. Actually waiting 24 hours makes it even better but it’s so hard to wait!!! The crackers absorb the apple butter. They will no longer taste like plain graham crackers.

This is what it will look like when you cut it. You will get about 3 servings out of this because it is really dense. It is soft just like a cake and it tastes yummy.

Like I said I am in no way telling you not to make a “real” Apple Stack Cake. But if you don’t have time and you want a treat that brings back a lot of memories, try this. Let me know how it goes.

Always remember,

Love your day your way!!!